Use of Handheld Thermal Imager Data for Airborne Mapping of Fire Radiative Power and Energy and Flame Front Rate of Spread

Infrared (IR) remote sensing is increasingly used in studies of vegetation fire behavior, and high spatiotemporal resolution investigations often require data to be collected from airborne platforms, for example, standard helicopters. This paper aims to extend the range of conditions under which low...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:IEEE transactions on geoscience and remote sensing Vol. 51; no. 6; pp. 3385 - 3399
Main Authors: Paugam, R., Wooster, M. J., Roberts, G.
Format: Journal Article
Language:English
Published: New York, NY IEEE 01.06.2013
Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers
Subjects:
Applied geophysics
Cameras
Earth sciences
Earth, ocean, space
Exact sciences and technology
Fire radiative energy (FRE)
fire radiative power (FRP)
Fires
Fuels
Geometry
georeferencing algorithm
Helicopters
Internal geophysics
rate of spread (ROS)
Temperature measurement
thermal imagery
algorithms
vegetation
platforms
imagery
thermal imagery
energy
radiance
image processing
detection
cost
aerial photography
Fire radiative energy (FRE)
remote sensing
cartography
windows
georeferencing algorithm
airborne methods
fires
brightness temperature
corrections
rate of spread (ROS)
fire radiative power (FRP)
standard samples
transformations
coordinate systems
ISSN:0196-2892, 1558-0644
Online Access:Get full text
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Summary:Infrared (IR) remote sensing is increasingly used in studies of vegetation fire behavior, and high spatiotemporal resolution investigations often require data to be collected from airborne platforms, for example, standard helicopters. This paper aims to extend the range of conditions under which low-cost "handheld" thermal imaging cameras can be employed in such studies, particularly by enabling the effective and efficient geometric correction of thermal imagery collected from such devices, even when viewing far off-nadir (e.g., out of a side door or window). The approach is based on the automated detection of a set of fixed thermal "ground control points," coupled with the use of a linear transformation matrix for warping the raw IR imagery to a fixed coordinate system. The output set of geometrically corrected brightness temperature and radiance images can be used to derive fire radiative power (FRP) and flame front rate of spread (ROS). We demonstrate and test our IR image processing methods on a series of case study fires, ranging from a small-scale laboratory to a 945-m 2 outdoor experimental burn. We compare mapped information on FRP obtained from simultaneous nadir and off-nadir views, where we find differences that are in part controlled by flame structure and/or view angle. In the large open fire case, we compare the mapped fire radiative energy and ROS to simultaneously acquired aerial photography that provides the position of fuel and flames in high detail, and we demonstrate how these data sets can be used to explore various aspects of fire behavior.
ISSN:0196-2892
1558-0644
DOI:10.1109/TGRS.2012.2220368